Dagestan authorities try to close independent weekly

New York, June 17, 2009--Authorities in the southern Russian republic of
Dagestan should immediately halt efforts to shut the Makhachkala-based
independent weekly Chernovik and should
drop extremism charges against editor Nadira Isayeva and four reporters, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On Monday, the local branch of Russia's state media regulator Rossvyazkomnadzor
filed a lawsuit against Chernovik in Dagestan's Supreme Court, demanding that the weekly be closed
for allegedly carrying "extremist" statements. The Rossvyazkomnadzor's lawsuit
comes on top of an ongoing criminal case alleging Isayeva and four staffers
engaged in extremism and incitement of hatred.

According to local press reports,
Rossvyazkomnadzor said articles published in 2008 incited hatred of law
enforcement agencies in the region. A first court hearing on the
Rossvyazkomnadzor's claim is scheduled for Thursday; no court date has yet been
scheduled in the criminal case.

Chernovik
is often critical of regional police and the Federal Security Service operating
in the region. Isayeva and her colleagues have contended that antiterrorist
operations carried out by the two agencies had actually fueled the rise of militant
Islam in the region.

"The attempt to silence one of the
few remaining independent voices in Russia's
turbulent North Caucasus region is deeply disturbing," said Nina Ognianova, CPJ's Europe and Central
Asia program coordinator. "Using accusations of extremism and
incitement to hatred in politicized lawsuits has become a favored tactic of
repression. The Dagestan authorities must drop
all suits against Nadira Isayeva and her colleagues at Chernovik immediately."

Isayeva told CPJ that regional law
enforcement officials, whom she and her colleagues continue to criticize, want
to shutter her paper by any means. Rossvyazkomnadzor regulators "filed this claim
as an alternative option in case they won't be able to convict us in a criminal
court," Isayeva said.

In
July 2008, regional prosecutors opened an investigation into alleged
extremism and incitement of hatred toward police as a social group. State investigators
who looked into Chernovik's content concluded
that the paper carries "statements directed at the formation and maintenance of
a negative social stereotype of representatives of the law enforcement
structures." A criminal case within the broad framework of the extremism law was
then opened against Isayeva and four of her colleagues.